Serverless Computing with Apache OpenWhisk

Light intro to Serverless and the Apache Openwhisk project

Transcript

1. Serverless
   Computing with
   Apache OpenWhisk
   Lorna Mitchell, IBM
   

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2. What is Serverless?
   • Code snippet
   • Deployed to cloud
   • Executed in response to an event
   • Scaled on demand
   • Costs nothing when idle
   @lornajane
   

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3. Where are the Servers?
   The servers are alive and well.
   (your function gets containerised, OpenWhisk grabs and runs it on
   demand in response to the registered triggers)
   @lornajane
   

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4. Does Serverless Solve
   Real Problems?
   @lornajane
   

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5. Does Serverless Solve
   Real Problems?
   Yes! *
   @lornajane
   

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6. Does Serverless Solve
   Real Problems?
   Yes! *
   * maybe not all of them
   @lornajane
   

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7. APIs and Microservices
   Serverless is a great fit for Microservices!
   Each endpoint (URL and verb combination) is a serverless
   action
   An API Gateway maps routes to actions
   Each endpoint is independent
   @lornajane
   

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8. One-Off Endpoints
   No need to spin up a whole server just for your:
   • Alexa skill
   • mailing list/slack team signup
   • incoming webhook from GitHub/Twilio/Nexmo/Zapier
   @lornajane
   

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9. Just Enough Backend Code
   Mobile and frontend experts often need some server-side code
   for APIs or secure Auth
   No sysadmin skills required
   @lornajane
   

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10. Serverless and Data
    When data is atomic, there's so much we can do with our
    easy-entry, highly scalable serverless platforms.
    • Transform data
    • React to database changes or incoming data
    • Work with small volume, trickling data
    • Work with high volume, streaming data
    • Handle one-off data transformation or import
    @lornajane
    

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11. Meet Apache OpenWhisk
    @lornajane
    

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12. Meet Apache OpenWhisk
    • http://openwhisk.incubator.apache.org/
    • Currently an incubator project, working towards graduation
    • Contributors from a variety of backgrounds
    @lornajane
    

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13. Supported Technologies
    OpenWhisk is Open Source and extensible. It supports:
    • Java
    • NodeJS
    • PHP
    • Python
    • Swift
    Docker containers can also be deployed and run.
    @lornajane
    

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14. Getting Started With
    Apache OpenWhisk
    @lornajane
    

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15. OpenWhisk Vocabulary
    • trigger an event, such as an incoming HTTP request
    • rule map a trigger to an action
    • action a function, optionally with parameters
    • package collect actions and parameters together
    • sequence more than one action in a row
    • cold start time to run a fresh action
    @lornajane
    

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16. Hello World in JS
    A main function, with a single parameter:
    exports.main = function(args) {
    return({"body": "Hello, World!"});
    };
    Function must return an object or a Promise
    @lornajane
    

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17. Parameters
    Parameters can be set:
    • at deploy time
    • at run time (including by the events that trigger them)
    CNCF project to standardise event params:
    https://github.com/cloudevents/spec
    @lornajane
    

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18. Deploying to OpenWhisk
    Deploy code:
    wsk package update demo
    zip hello.zip index.js
    wsk action update --kind nodejs:6 demo/hello1 hello.zip
    Then run it:
    wsk action invoke --result demo/hello1
    @lornajane
    

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19. Web-Enabled Actions
    Deploy code:
    wsk package update demo
    zip hello.zip index.js
    wsk action update --kind nodejs:6 --web true demo/hello1 hello.zip
    Then get the URL and curl it:
    wsk action get --url demo/hello1
    curl https://172.17.0.1/api/v1/web/guest/demo/hello1
    @lornajane
    

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20. More About Packages
    Packages allow us to:
    • group actions together
    • set parameters on packages, used by all actions
    Sequences can include actions from other packages
    @lornajane
    

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21. Built In Packages
    There are some packages and actions available by default:
    • utils
    • cloudant
    • github
    • slack
    • websocket
    • samples
    @lornajane
    

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22. Using Built-In Actions
    As an example: there's a wordCount action in the samples
    package:
    wsk -i action invoke --result /whisk.system/samples/wordCount \
    -p payload "A good way to ruin a fine walk"
    Returns: 8
    @lornajane
    

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23. Using Sequences
    For example: notify Slack when a user registers
    @lornajane
    

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24. Serverless and Apache
    OpenWhisk
    @lornajane
    

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25. Resources
    • http://openwhisk.incubator.apache.org/
    • https://www.ibm.com/cloud/functions
    • https://lornajane.net
    For more: "Serverless Microservices are the New Black"
    tomorrow afternoon
    @lornajane
    

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